Emmanuel Amunike, Nigeria U17 national team coach, has
subjected the boys into long hour’s concentration as well as technical set
pieces and penalty shoot out training. He said that the team cannot afford
further complacency that saw them lost their last match against Croatia 1 -2.This is the knock out stage!

You can recall that Nigeria beat USA U17side 2 – 0, then hammered the host Chile 5 – 1, then nobody envisaged
that the Golden Eaglets team was going to
loss to Croatia, which drew both group matches 1 – 1 against Chile and 2 – 2 against USA ,
but that’s football for you.

But Amunike insisted that the boys were complacent
because they had already qualified for the round of 16 before that match. But
according to Amunike such show of complacency and loss of concentration was
dangerous for the team’s confidence and consistent wining strip.

Nigeria’s opponent in the round of 16, Australia
qualified as third best losers after the team lost 1 – 4 against Germany, drew
0 – 0 against Mexico and surprisingly won
their last match against 1 – 2 against Argentina.

Nigeria is going into the match as favorite to win,
especially if the Golden Eaglets hit the kind of rhythm it did against Chile,
then Australia will a mince meat. But it is better to point out Australia’s
continues improvement with every game it had played so far. Australia has build
more confidence over the last three matches and Nigeria shouldn’tall catch them napping or they might pay
dearly for it.